Do the DOTC and the DOF have different ways of treating errant employees and officers? Or are they treated differently because the Cebu port collector is the brother of a top administration politician and the publisher of one of the leading Philippine newspapers?

Come on, now, if DOTC’s Mendoza fires his top man in the Visayas just because he allowed these smuggled vehicles to be registered, how much more guilty are those in the Port of Cebu who allowed these cars to be smuggled into the country?

The word is that while Subic Port has stopped being the main entry point of smuggled vehicles, the smugglers have all flocked to Cebu. How can that happen if the ones in charge of the Cebu port are not in on the smuggling operations?

Larry Mendoza has even ordered the DOTC’s Security and Law Enforcement Service (ISLES) to get to the bottom of this case, in particular to determine the involvement of several officials of LTO Region 7 in the issuance of the registration papers to the luxury vehicles said to have been smuggled through customs.

Also included in the investigation are LTO Offices in Toledo, Mandaue, Cebu, Talisay and Lapu-Lapu Cities, all in Region 7.

According to Mendoza, criminal and administrative charges will be filed against those who will be found responsible in supposedly faking the car registration papers, depending upon the result on the investigation conducted by the ISLES.

The DOTC will also conduct a review on the procedure in the registration of imported luxury vehicles in order to formulate a more stringent measures and safety nets. Still, no matter what Larry Mendoza and all of the officials of the DOTC, working all together, will do, this will not stop the smuggling of vehicles until and unless the Commissioner of the Bureau of Customs or the Secretary of Finance to whom the Customs Commissioner reports, actually does something to show that they want the smuggling to stop.

One sure way to get this message across is to fire the politician’s brother who is lording it over the Cebu Port!

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Finally, we have an Environment and Natural Resources secretary who admits that corruption has been a major factor in the dwindling forest cover of the country.

Says newly appointed DENR Secretary Lito Atienza: "We know very well that in the past yung (illegal) logging naging sampu-sampera, nabebenta ang lisensya kahit sa lugar na di na dapat pinagpuputulan ng punong-kahoy kaya nakakalbo ang mga bundok natin. Nagkaroon na ng log ban pero tuloy pa rin ang circumvention of the law."

We have lost much of our country’s forest cover. Between 1990 and 2005, we started with 16 million hectares of forests and ended with a scarce 700,000 hectares. That is what widespread illegal logging did to this country.

Despite the government’s total ban on logging operations after the 1991 Ormoc, Leyte disaster, illegal logging still continues today, with Atienza pointing to corruption as the major reason for the malpractice. How? Corruption, says Atienza.

Statistics show that the deforestation of Philippine forests is at a rate of 1,900 hectares a day. By 2015, say the experts, the country’s forest cover will be completely gone.

Atienza promises: "We will definitely not allow anyone to gain any special privilege from DENR. We will make sure that our existing forest cover is not only protected but even improved.

"We at the Department must pursue every endeavor that will protect our environment and our natural resources to the best that the laws intend. All we need is to enforce these laws to the letter."

"Climate change can be best prevented or slowed by reforestation. I am encouraging all DENR employees to be members of our tree planting brigade and let us all get involved with massive education, information, and communication efforts to also encourage everybody to do the same," Atienza added.

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Former President Joseph Estrada has said that he wants the next president to be a younger man and that is one reason he is not interested in the position. Considering that Erap will be 74 when the elections are held in May 2010, just about everyone who is thinking of running will actually be younger than he will be at that time.

Erap is right, of course. We do need younger persons to lead this country. But many are almost Erap’s own age. Of the aspirants, Vice President Noli de Castro, Senate President Manny Villar, Richard Gordon, Ping Lacson and Loren Legarda are in their 60s. The younger candidates are Senator Mar Roxas and MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando who are in their early fifties.

Considering that our population is skewed in such a way that those under 25 years old comprise the majority of Filipinos (close to 60 percent) and those under 20 years of age are at least 40 percent of the population, how can we have such old persons leading this country?

How can this country move forward quickly when there is a whole generation between the majority of those who are led and who must follow and their elected leaders? There is not even any means of communicating over this huge generation gap. Which is probably why most of our leaders are leading as if in a vacuum. There is no enthusiasm for them and most have to throw money at the voters in order to receive any support from them.

This is one time when Erap is absolutely right. Let’s go to our younger leaders. Not only can they do the job; they can do it better than those who are presently occupying positions of leadership.

Now, if only a lot more young men and women would stand up, come forward and make themselves useful to our country. This is their time. Unfortunately, a lot of them do not even know it yet.